Photo by Rachael Michelle
Katya de Becerra is the author of the new novel Little Kin. Her other books include the novel Oasis. She is also an anthropologist.
Q: What inspired you to write Little Kin, and how did you create your character Cass?
A: Little Kin began with a dream, quite literally. One moment I was falling asleep, and the next I was standing on the deck of a steam ferry crossing a stormy sea toward a mist-shrouded island. My name was Cassini, and I knew I was arriving somewhere that would change me forever.
The rest of the novel grew from that initial imagery: an isolated community bound by a set of rules, an ancient covenant, and a sentient landscape with an agenda of its own.
Cass emerged from another part of my life. I’m a cultural anthropologist by training and have spent years doing fieldwork, listening to people tell stories about who they are, where they belong, and how they make sense of the world.
Like many anthropologists, Cass believes that if only she can ask the right questions, she’ll find the truth. Little Kin is, in part, about what happens when that confidence collides with something older, stranger, and far less interested in being understood. It’s a book about belonging, identity, and the stories we inherit—and the ones that end up inheriting us.
Q: The novel is set on an island near the Arctic Circle--how important is setting to you in your writing?
A: Setting is incredibly important to me, so much so it’s rarely just a backdrop. In my books, place is character, and often the most dangerous character of all. As an immigrant, I've spent much of my life negotiating what it means to belong, so I’m naturally fascinated by places that claim people as fiercely as people claim them.
My fascination with semi/sentient settings probably began in earnest with my sophomore novel Oasis, but in Little Kin I pushed that idea further than ever before. Rothagisht is an island that remembers, judges (and holds a grudge!), shaping the lives of those who dare call it home.
To create it, I drew inspiration from a winter trip to Iceland, where I was struck by the stark beauty of volcanic landscapes, as well as by Icelandic folklore and the enduring cultural importance of ancestry, kinship, and belonging.
As both an anthropologist and a novelist, I’m fascinated by the ways places shape people and people shape places in return. In Little Kin, I wanted readers to feel that the island isn’t only where the story happens—it is the story.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: Like most of my novels, Little Kin began with an ending in mind—not the mechanics of the plot, but an emotional destination. I knew where Cass needed to arrive spiritually and psychologically, even if I had no idea what roads, monsters, and mistakes would get her there.
As an anthropologist, I’m fascinated by the ways people change (or don’t!) when their assumptions collide with something unfamiliar, and much of the book emerged from watching Cass negotiate her complicated relationship with Rothagisht. I wasn't particularly interested in whether she could solve the island's mysteries so much as whether she could learn to see herself through them.
The biggest changes came in revision. As Rothagisht became more complex, stranger, and, I hope, more alive, I had to spend a great deal of time refining the island's ecology, folklore, creatures, and belief systems because I wanted every element to feel interconnected.
In many ways, building Rothagisht felt less like inventing a fictional world and more like conducting fieldwork in a place that only existed in my head. The deeper I dug, the more the island revealed about itself, and the more I realized everything on Rothagisht, human and otherwise, was part of a single story.
Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: The title Little Kin grew out of the novel’s fascination with kinship, belonging, and the invisible ties that bind us to people and places.
Early in the writing process, I actually had a very different title in mind: A Dying Custom. That version emphasized the story's rituals and traditions, and the tension between preserving the past and embracing change.
But the deeper I got into the book, the more I realized the story wasn’t ultimately about a custom at all. It was about connection and kinship.
While researching Iceland, I became fascinated by the idea of Huldufólk—the Hidden People—and the way folk beliefs can exist comfortably alongside modern life, science, and official religion, quietly influencing everyday decisions and shaping how people understand the world. As an anthropologist, I’m interested in those spaces where logic and myth overlap.
For me, Little Kin ultimately is a story about family, ancestry, community, and the landscapes that shape us. The title captures both the intimacy and the unease of that search for belonging, because sometimes what calls us home isn’t entirely familiar or safe.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I'm currently juggling two very different projects. One is an adult speculative novel inspired by a blend of fairy tales from my childhood, while the other is a YA horror story that takes inspiration from a certain classic Agatha Christie mystery and reimagines it firmly within the supernatural horror genre.
I also have a new horror short story coming out this October in The Heart of Elder Horrors anthology. It’s inspired by one of my favourite classic movie monsters, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and by Milicent Patrick, the remarkable artist whose role in creating that iconic creature was largely forgotten for decades. The result is a story about dark family secrets, revenge, and the transformative power of becoming something other than what the world expects you to be.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: If you’d like to learn more about my work, you can find me at katyadebecerra.com, where I share essays, guest posts, interviews, podcasts, and occasional deep dives into folklore, horror, anthropology, and writing.
When I’m not writing fiction, I work as a university professor, and one of the greatest privileges of my academic career is supervising Ph.D. candidates in creative writing whose projects range from queer horror and posthuman monstrosity to cross-genre fantasy.
Between my students’ projects and my own, I spend a great deal of time thinking about monsters, magic, and identity—and I consider that a life very well lived!
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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